THE rail strikes that crippled train services for more than a year cost a York operator about £5 million.

An annual report issued by the passenger watchdog, the North Eastern Rail Passengers' Committee (RPC), today revealed that Arriva Trains Northern (ATN) was hit with a heavy financial burden during last year's strikes by conductors.

The report, written by the RPC's Fran Critchley, criticised "positive spin" where ATN claimed it was covering 75 per cent of its routes on strike days.

She stated: "There is little doubt that passengers were seriously inconvenienced. By ATN's own admission, it did not operate services on one in four of its routes, neither did 45 per cent of its services run.

"Overcrowding was also a significant problem for passengers on strike days."

A total of 25 days of strikes took place between January, 2002, and January this year as conductors fought for better pay and conditions.

In the end, staff accepted a four per cent pay rise and a one-off payment of £250. At one point, they had demanded an 18 per cent increase.

Ray Price, managing director of Arriva Trains Northern, said: "Our main focus was always to provide as many services as possible on strike days.

"We worked extremely hard to ensure that we had a timetable in place that benefited as many of our customers as we could and was deliverable."

The Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) did not escape criticism in the report, which said: "Having consulted its members to seek a mandate for strike action, it was exceedingly reluctant to seek its members' views on the various offers which were put on the table."

A union spokesman said today there had been no point in re-balloting members when there had not been any significant improvement on offer.

Updated: 10:47 Tuesday, June 03, 2003